In Taking Control of East Finals, LeBron Again Separates Himself as a Superstar
ATLANTA — It's always tough to pinpoint when one player breaks another team's spirit, especially in a game won via a plethora of passes.
But Friday night during a 94-82 victory, what LeBron James did in a single play late in the second quarter demonstrated the startling contrast between a superstar and a team of All-Stars. It also helped explain why the Cavaliers are headed home to Cleveland with a 2-0 lead over the Hawks in this Eastern Conference Finals.
It started with a defensive rebound, one of his eight, and a methodical advance from the right to left side of the floor. It continued once he crossed the arc with a hard dribble to his right and the recognition that DeMarre Carroll, game but gimpy on a sore knee, lacked his usual lateral quickness. That translated into a decision to spin back quickly to the left all while soaring to the rim.
There, James encountered the taller Al Horford and, rather than force a tough-angled shot over the Hawks center, spun again and somehow saw an abandoned Iman Shumpert on the right wing. And so, he shot-putted a one-bounce pass to Shumpert, who scooped up the ball like a shortstop and swished a three-pointer.
"You find yourself open, you find guys cheating, and you only got to tell this guy one time that somebody's sinking in a little too much, and he'll find you with that pass," Shumpert said, his signature hair stuffed in a hat as he sat next to James at the podium following Game 2.
"Him snapping that ball at you, there's energy in that ball when you get it. You've just got to knock them down because you know, if he keeps driving it, he causes everybody to come in there and make all that traffic."
And he causes dejected home fans to try to beat the traffic.
"When I'm able to put pressure on a defense and then make a pass to a teammate and he's able to knock it down, I've always got the excitement of that more than anything," James said.
He had 11 assists in all on a night that the Hawks, first in the NBA in assist percentage in the regular season, totaled only 15. Four of those assists came in the second quarter, five in the third and two in the fourth. The first seven were for three-pointers. Five different players were beneficiaries: four for Shumpert, three for Matthew Dellavedova, two for James Jones and one each for Timofey Mozgov and Tristan Thompson.
Not an All-Star in the bunch.
Before this season, hardly a single household name, either, unless your household was in Miami, Manhattan, Cleveland, Denver, St. Petersburg or Maryborough, Australia.
Even then, probably not.
So Friday night offered a study in the differences of stardom. The entire Hawks starting five was named Eastern Conference "Player" of the Month for their perfect January, and four of them were chosen for the All-Star Game. But in late May, you wouldn't trade James for all of them.
That's not to disparage Paul Millsap, Al Horford, Jeff Teague and Kyle Korver, though Millsap has been overmatched and overwhelmed by Tristan Thompson, Horford has been passive, Teague has been erratic even at the rim and Korver has forced the action more than usual. Nor is it a jab at Carroll, the one non-All-Star among the starters who showed impressive grit by gutting out a team-high 34 minutes on one functional knee.
But none of them, with the exception of Korver when he's rolling, can really elevate the others, and even he can be successfully schemed against, as the Cavaliers have shown so far in this series. James can leave you utterly helpless, which is what has happened to the Hawks. It's why their surprising season is running short, even with Kevin Love and now Kyrie Irving sidelined.
"He controlled the game," Horford said.
To what degree? How about this: Through three quarters, the Cavaliers led the Hawks, 84-66, and James' points or assists had accounted for 54 of Cleveland's points. So while it may seem immodest when he makes the following statement, it's also clinically and entirely accurate.
"I have a gift, and that's why I'm able to keep defenses off guard because, you know, they say, 'OK, we're going to make him score or make him pass,'" James said. "They really can't do what I don't want to do."
That's the key, that last sentence. That's why fans and media find it frustrating when he pounds the ball for possession after possession, the way he did in the final quarter of Game 1.
"We had a big lead, and we started to play the clock, and that was my fault," James said. "I took that straight to the head. I knew, if I got that opportunity again, I wouldn't let that happen again."
His ability to self-critique, and self-correct, is one of his most overlooked attributes, and he did that again Friday. Meanwhile, the Hawks were finding that another team can force them to do what they don't want to do. One after another, they spoke afterward of straying from "Hawks basketball." Carroll, while observing that "we're not moving the ball like we should," added that "we know we didn't play a team game."
But the opposing team can contribute to that. With Shumpert, Dellavedova and Thompson primarily in support of James, the Cavaliers have been successful at taking away the Hawks' initial option, forcing them to isolate and then locking in on their tendencies. None of the Hawks are skilled enough on their own to overcome that.
When Bleacher Report asked James about this strategy, he laughed.
"How do I want to answer this question?"
He continued to say that the Cavaliers are "the No. 1 defensive team in the postseason for a reason. Obviously, it's a great offensive team that we're playing against. You can't stop a great offensive team. You just try to make it tough on them. That's all we're trying to do."
It was tough to glean much from that, or the rest of his answer, intentionally vague and bland as it was.
That's OK.
He had assisted enough on the evening already.
Ethan Skolnick covers the NBA for Bleacher Report and is a co-host of NBA Sunday Tip, 9-11 a.m. ET on SiriusXM Bleacher Report Radio. Follow him on Twitter, @EthanJSkolnick.
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